Recently, I had someone email and ask, why do you call yourself a masochist? Do you like pain? And the answer is... "Yes. I love pain. The pain that is imparted by our friend Wilbur Scoville". (Actually, all that guff about someone actually emailing me is just a shameless pretense to bring up the Scoville scale.)
The Scoville scale measures how much burny you're going to get on your tongue from eating said chile. Yes burny is a word! Why not?
Since I love me some code tags, I'm going to put our version of the Scoville scale in them. Take that, Web 2.0!
15,000,000–17,000,000 Pure capsaicin 9,100,000 Nordihydrocapsaicin 2,000,000–5,300,000 Standard U.S. Grade pepper spray 855,000–1,041,427 Naga Jolokia 350,000–577,000 Red Savina Habanero 100,000–350,000 Habanero chili, Scotch Bonnet 100,000–200,000 Rocoto, Jamaican Hot Pepper, African Birdseye 50,000–100,000 Thai Pepper, Malagueta Pepper, Chiltepin Pepper, Pequin Pepper 30,000–50,000 Cayenne Pepper, Ají pepper, Tabasco pepper 10,000–23,000 Serrano Pepper 7,000–8,000 Tabasco Sauce (Habanero) 5,000–10,000 Wax Pepper 4,500–5,000 New Mexican varieties of Anaheim pepper 2,500–8,000 Jalapeño Pepper 2,500–5,000 Tabasco Sauce (Tabasco pepper) 1,500–2,500 Rocotillo Pepper, Sriracha 1,000–1,500 Poblano Pepper, Texas Pete sauce 600–800 Jalapeno Tabasco sauce 500–2500 Anaheim pepper 100–500 Pimento, Pepperoncini 0 No heat, Bell pepper
Now, anyone who's never heard of the Scoville scale is wondering what the heck those numbers are up there. Well, basically thats the rating that Wilbur assigned each of the corresponding chiles using the Scoville Organoleptic Test. You'll never believe me if I tell you what the Organoleptic Test consisted of. Ready? Here it is. That's right, good old fashioned human test subjects. Ahh. The good old days. What peppers have I tried?
Everything on there with the exception of the Ají and the Naga Jolokia. I can't find them anywhere. But now I'm seriously considering spraying some pepper spray on my pizza at some point in the future.